Fractures
by WickedSong
Summary: "On her first day at SHIELD Eleanor Smith is introduced to her parents." "It's her now, not their now. Time travel tends to get confusing." FitzSimmons. SkyeWard. Time travel.
1. Prologue

**Fractures,**

**Written by WickedSong.**

**Disclaimer/Note: I don't own AoS, obviously. I'm very eh about this title right now but I want to post this. So it could change but it could also grow on me, who knows? So basically this is a fic that will involve time travel and angst. I know the general plot line, but because I don't have an awful lot more, and won't have it, until I can really dedicate myself to the story when my exams are finished, I don't want to say much more. So please read the prologue and if you're interested, well, I hope you'll be here for the next update in about a week and a half.**

* * *

On her first day at SHIELD Eleanor _Smith_ is introduced to her parents.

Well, they aren't her parents _yet_ and that's what she has to remember as she shakes the hands of Leo Fitz and Jemma Simmons. She murmurs a few words of greeting, and, in turn, they both express them back. She tries to keep her foot out of her mouth as much as possible as they welcome her and she instead chooses to marvel at not only how much younger they are, but also at how they still look the same. Her dad, without any grey in his hair, but with his hands on his hips and giving a forced smile, like all the times he's never really cared for company. Her dad likes what he knows; it makes him feel comfortable and safe, much like herself. Her mum, on the other hand, is the nicest woman she knows and there is not a wrinkle in sight on her face as she gives a welcoming grin, while telling her it's a 'pleasure to have her on board'.

_Both_ of them, however, make clear of their interest in the fact that she's a specialist, much like Agents May and Ward, who she'll meet sooner rather than later they're sure. Eleanor smiles and nods along, aware of the fact that she is not, and will never be, a specialist, and it is simply part of her cover.

FitzSimmons, as they're known around the BUS, and very much all around SHIELD welcome her on board and show her to her bunk as per Coulson's orders and then leave her to go conduct whatever experiment it is they're up to in the lab this week. Eleanor thinks she might get a moment of peace to think about the people she just met and the ones she left behind at home; both the same people but not; it's been such a whirlwind since she agreed to do this; but instead she hears a knock at the door which snaps her out of her reverie. Before she's barely had time to form a coherent thought she comes face to face with the type of agents she's to blend in with.

She recognises the woman in front of her immediately. Melinda May, dead in an extraction gone wrong, when she was only five years old, gives a slight nod and holds out her hand quickly. She knows that Agent May also pilots the plane as well as being involved in the field.

She knows the man, Agent Grand Ward, from pictures and a few stories but he was killed in an unspecified mission before she was born and so she doesn't have nearly as much to hold on to.

The 'pleased to meet you' rolls off her tongue with relative ease, nonetheless; this isn't her area of expertise; and she can't help but feel like she already _knows_ these people anyway, despite the fact that she actually really doesn't - in any time. She's heard the stories; the legends. Melinda May, also known as The Calvary, has always been described as a stern woman and the way that she looks straight past Eleanor now as she says 'how do you do' was like she was sizing up any possible threat. Just like Coulson said she would.

Agent Ward is a little more relaxed, gives her a stiff smile and asks where she's from.

She stutters a little, stumbles over her words but manages to somehow splutter about how she was moved between places a lot as a child. She was mainly raised between Scotland and England with her mum and dad flitting between the two before deciding to settle down near a SHIELD facility at the border. She was told to keep the cover about being part-English and part-Scottish, with two parents who couldn't agree completely on where to raise her. There was no need to bring up any parental relation to SHIELD and raise questions about them in front of her actual parents. She puts her accent; a dual twang, down to this, and no one seems suspicious.

She has her mother's penchant for _following the rules_ and being polite but also her father's profanity and she can't help but think _that's_ coloured her voice in turn.

When she turns her attention back to Agent Ward she finds it odd to look at him and have nothing from the future to go on.

She has a few memories of Melinda May. There's a bracelet that was a present when she was a baby that she keeps as a memento of her, always around her wrist, and a few old photographs where the woman gives a rare, soft smile while holding a tiny bundle in a white blanket, and then playing with a small toddler while on a rare break from the BUS. Agent Ward, on the other hand, is a blank canvas for her. She has a few stories to fill him in, but nothing substantial, as if her parents have always been a little scared to build that bridge.

The reason, Eleanor guesses, is the woman who has now joined their small group.

To Eleanor, she's Aunt Skye, who'll sometimes drop in when she's finished a mission to reassure her parents she's still alive and to drop off a trinket or two that she found that 'the kid' might like. When she was younger it was all about story time, and Aunt Skye would have plenty to fashion for her from her missions, but there was an emptiness there that Eleanor only picked up on when she became older.

To SHIELD she's Agent S, an extremely capable but lesser trained and more reckless Melinda May. She goes in, gets the job done and comes back without much fuss. She'll sometimes start a fight or ruckus that they might have deemed unnecessary just because she can, just because she _wants_ to, but as long as SHIELD can cover it up and as long as she gets the mission done it's something they're willing to let go for one of their best operatives.

But this is _Skye_; she's a vibrant, seemingly carefree young woman; how her parents described she was until Ward, and then May died. She doesn't seem too far-removed from the woman that Eleanor knows, maybe just injected with more colour, more of a heart here. She holds out her hand first and asks her name once more with a welcoming smile on her face, while also expressing some confusion over the accent, saying she can't tell whether it sounds like Fitz's or Simmons's.

Eleanor tells her it's a mixture of both and it's not even a lie on any count, not that they'd know.

She had tried to paper over it with an American accent; but it just wouldn't stick no matter how many times she practiced, and she's _really_ not good at this operative stuff.

She's not a real operative; she took a crash course before coming back here; two weeks putting her through her paces because apparently she's the only one who can do this, because apparently it was too risky to send someone already _with_ the system back, not to mention an entire team. She's not like them, not like Agents Ward or May once were, or like Agent S – _Skye_ – is now.

_It's her now, not their now_. Time travel tends to get confusing.

_Yeah_, she thinks as she looks at the people around her, she, Eleanor Fitzsimmons, is in over her head this time.


	2. The More Things Change

**Fractures,**

**Written by WickedSong.**

**Disclaimer/Note: I do not own AoS. Did you guys think I'd forgotten about this story? It is very much still a WIP as the story is still not completely finalised but I felt like I knew enough that I could post this second chapter (actually the first chapter). I had the first two sections written for a while and then I felt like I needed an additional part just to make it a little bit longer. Hope you enjoy and tell me your thoughts!**

* * *

One of her favourite stories growing up had started as most stories do. Her Aunt Skye would gather her onto her lap or sit with her on the floor; legs crossed in a basket, and say 'once upon a time...', weaving a tale about a prince and princess. But it wasn't like Snow White or Sleeping Beauty, the classics that her mum and dad would tell her. They especially loved telling her Snow White, if only so they could use the D.W.A.R.F.S. to tell the story too.

Eleanor would always sit eagerly, waiting for the next adventures of the prince and princess. The pair would capture her imagination and even at her young age she would draw pictures, inventing her own stories. A few times she had even asked her mum and dad to tell her a story about them when her Aunt Skye wasn't there to. But they never got it exactly right, and Eleanor would tell them, matter-of-factly that they 'didn't understand' and so she would always end up cross-legged and awaiting the next tale on the next visit from Skye.

The prince and the princess would fight the dragons together; instead of alone. They'd bicker and fight and he'd sometimes be too protective or she'd be too headstrong but they loved each other, Aunt Skye would tell her, and Eleanor thought that that was the most important part.

"They would still kick the a-," Eleanor would hear a polite cough, and turn to see her mother, listening to the story and giving a look to her Aunt Skye. It was only when she was older that she realised it was her mother trying to avoid the profanities that her friend was known for, "-butt of the dragons."

Eleanor would still giggle at the use of the word 'butt'.

It wasn't only dragons they fought, however. She remembers a fear of centipedes, a direct result of her Aunt Skye using them as the scary creatures in her stories one too many times. Before she knew what a centipede actually was she would imagine a creature the size of a dragon with one hundred legs, hiding in her wardrobe. It was only when she told her father of this fear that he gave her a slight smile and left the room, returning a minute later with a big textbook; one of her mum's and the kind of one Eleanor liked to flip through but couldn't really comprehend yet, not at four years old.

"_This_," he said, as he opened the book up on the page about insects, and leaned in closer so she could grab a corner of the book too, "is a centipede."

They were _small_, much smaller than a _dragon_. She had laughed.

By the time she reached the age of seven she encountered what she thought was an obvious flaw in the perfect stories and one she would often perfect in her own versions.

"Why don't the prince and princess end up together?" Aunt Skye, who had been telling her about the prince and princess fighting trolls and ogres, looked up from her stupor and for the first time, Eleanor noticed, didn't have an answer to her questions.

It was true. Eleanor had always waited for the big ending, the 'happily ever after', where they'd get married and live in a castle but still fight _butt_. The truth was that the story always ended just before any of that could happen; Aunt Skye would tell her '…and they beat the dragon,' '…and they beat the centipede,' and then leave it wholly incomplete and unfinished.

She was far too young at the time to realise any sort of nerve that had been struck and instead smiled, waiting for an answer.

Aunt Skye had scooped her up into her arms the first time she had asked the question. "And how would their story end, Ellie?"

Ellie was her _favourite_ nickname.

She had run to get her notebook then, where she had written some of her own versions of the prince and princesses adventures.

Oh, she had _so_ many ideas for the prince and princess and their perfect ending.

* * *

Phil Coulson welcomes her into his office with an air of familiarity that she's sure he doesn't understand completely. She feels it too. He's her Uncle Phil. There are photographs where he's holding her as a baby. There are home movies where they're laughing while her dad looks at the camera in a 'ha, ha, very funny,' sort of way after being caught as the unwilling victim of an elaborate prank that they pulled off.

But this is Agent Phil Coulson, one of SHIELD's top brass and it's a side to him she has never been exposed to often. Sometimes he would tell her off for doing something she wasn't supposed to but overall he was her 'cool' uncle, often letting her away with other things that her parents wouldn't.

He invites her to take a seat across from him at the table and she agrees, with a strained smile that she hopes doesn't give too much away. She isn't sure how much he knows about her yet; knowing she has to figure that out first.

She feels herself almost withering under the look he gives her; studying and cross-examining, trying to determine any threat. While he was 'cool' Uncle Phil, he was also protective Uncle Phil too; and being an Agent of SHIELD only made this trait more pronounced.

"Miss Smith, is that correct?" he asks, finally deciding to take a seat, which calms Eleanor more than she thought it should.

She nods. "Yes."

"Specialist and…" He peers over the file he's reading with another long look, "hacker?"

"I have my talents, as I'm sure that file can tell you," she replies, almost automatically. So much so that she has to second guess if the words really did come out of her mouth. She has an air of confidence about her; something she's had to learn to fake until it's real.

He leans forward, file aside, and hands clasped on the table. "You can drop the act, Miss Smith. Or should I say, Miss Fitzsimmons."

She blinks, once, twice, wondering whether she should panic, and instead feeling relief in its place. She lets out a sigh and smiles. "Is that in my file too?"

He waves it in front of her face. "Classified to the highest level. Director Fury believed I should know for the purposes of this mission." He takes another look at her and she wonders if before he was just trying to see the resemblance she bears to his two resident scientists.

"I wonder why he thought it was wise to send you back of all people."

"It was your call, Un-Sir." She catches herself before making the mistake.

While she notes his confused expression she swallows, finally realising how dry her throat is.

"He said you'd ask," she finally tells him with an air of lightness, but then she sees his expression darken.

"So I give the order to-"

"Yes."

"But she's-"

"A rogue Agent now, according to SHIELD," Eleanor supplies.

She knows how he feels because she had felt it too. The betrayal in the pit of your stomach and the way the feeling rises like bile to the top of your throat.

He stands and turns his back to her, giving her her first real opportunity to survey his office. Aunt Skye always described it as 'full of old junk' and Uncle Phil would cut in with how it had 'sentimental value' and then they'd argue a bit more and Eleanor would laugh because it was just like a family was supposed to act.

Now her family was a little broken; a tear that she had to try to mend and she didn't really know how; beyond two weeks of SHIELD boot camp and a mission briefing she still didn't fully understand or have any idea how to pull off.

"Why _did_ they send you? I," he clarifies quickly, looking stumped. He's seen so much already; she figured time travel wouldn't faze him. She was obviously wrong. "Why did_ I_ send you?"

She shakes her head. "I don't really know either." It's not the fake, confident answer she has practiced but it's the truth and it's the only comforting thing she can find right now. She's always been able to tell him anything; he's encouraged it, and she doesn't want to break that trust now.

He tells her she can leave, as she rises from the chair.

She looks behind her once, when she reaches the door, as he takes an old charred watch out of the desk and looks upon it, almost fondly, before turning back to face the wall.

* * *

"So, they're bringing in a Specialist who is also an accomplished hacker?"

Eleanor stands behind the wall, hearing Skye engaged in conversation with someone else and not wanting to interrupt, also curious to hear what she thinks of her and not really liking what she's hearing.

"Why do I get the feeling SHIELD HQ are trying to replace me before I'm even an Agent?"

Tentatively, Eleanor peeks her head around the corner and finds Skye standing with Agent Ward in the kitchen area. She sits on the counter as he wipes off his hands and shrugs.

"I doubt they sent her to replace you," he assures. "You know Coulson wouldn't replace anyone on this team. Especially you."

Of course they're suspicious. Why shouldn't they be? She doesn't have the skill set of a Specialist. That part of her cover is just a cover. On the other hand, everything she knows about hacking comes from things her Aunt Skye taught her growing up. Tricks of a trade she had never really given up on despite her high place in SHIELD.

Eleanor takes a deep sigh, not knowing whether to join her new teammates or to go back to her bunk and try to collect her bearings. She turns to do the latter after a moment of intense deliberation and ends up knocking into her mother in the process.

"Oh silly me, I should have been watching where I was going," the other woman says as she bends down to collect materials – carefully sealed and tightened and hopefully not at all dangerous - she dropped on the floor. "Fitz was meant to help me move these but he just had to finish his experiment!" she shouts the last part, to catch the attention of an engineer who, and Eleanor knows this from previous experience, probably isn't even listening.

Eleanor gives a nervous laugh. "Would you like some help?"

Her mum – she should probably get used to calling her Jemma – shakes her head. "Oh, no thank you. I should really just drop these off in the interrogation room and then get back down to the lab anyway." She gives a small smile, with a nod and then is off on her way once more.

Eleanor manages to smile, just a little, noting that her mum isn't actually all that different – a calming influence in a world she isn't quite used to – and one she's not sure she ever will be.


	3. Systems

**Fractures,**

**Written by WickedSong.**

**Disclaimer/Note: In the first chapter. So, I'm not meaning for this to be updated monthly but I seem to be going in that direction. Just uni work and things seem to be getting on top of me this semester for some reason, but I digress. This chapter is a little longer than intended, but I feel like the last parts will tie in with later chapters so. Hope you enjoy, and tell me what you think. All the enthusiasm for this story so far has really got me hyped up and motivated so thank you very much!**

* * *

The day she was called up to SHIELD was the day after her Aunt Skye went off the grid. She and her parents had been called to Uncle Phil's office at the small facility near their home. Her parents were not only widely accomplished scientists but also two of the brightest Agents the organisation had ever had. While they no longer took part in field work, they still conducted their research for the organisation. Their brains and that knowledge were too valuable to fall into enemy hands, and they were kept close by. Eleanor, a product of that intelligence, was valuable too, in her own way.

"No, no, no," her dad said as soon as Uncle Phil had given the barest outline of his plan, explaining that they couldn't track Skye _anywhere_ and that time travel was the only theory they could come up with that made sense."She is _not_ going into the field."

Instead of looking irritated Uncle Phil simply sat down, level to level with herself and her parents as if he had expected this. Her mum also shook her head.

"What Fitz means, _sir_," she said giving an aside look to the man beside her, "is that we don't think Eleanor is quite…_adept_ for field work. Perhaps working in a laboratory and then working her way towards that. If that's what she wants."

Eleanor winced a little. She knew there were reasons that she couldn't be as adventurous as she had often dreamed of; why she was kept in a small house in a small village with her small family. They acted like she had no idea her parents were revered brains of this time, that she was oblivious to the threat that hung over her own head day by day.

"We both failed our physicals when we came to the BUS and Eleanor's never been so much near a bloody fight, not to mention a full scale operation," her dad argued.

Uncle Phil remained quiet and stoic while Eleanor watched with interest, wondering what exactly he was thinking.

"Well, Eleanor," he said, turning to her. And she was shocked at the sudden interest. "It appears you have a choice to make."

She found a sudden interest in the floor beneath her feet then. Twisting her lip, she felt a hand reach over to touch her own. Looking up into her mum's eyes, and that same smile, while her dad also looked on, she somehow mustered up some courage to speak. "You're talking as if time travel is even possible. Weren't plans for that destroyed after there were talks of nuclear warfare ten years ago?"

Uncle Phil sat back in his sit and she realised she'd said too much. That information was restricted and classified, but she had been curious; as any fifteen year old, who had no one else to really talk to, apart from a couple of kids her own age who lived in the same small village, would be at the thought of a third World War and so she had accidentally; in no way could it be traced back to her; hacked a very sensitive mainframe and found out that such plans had existed.

"We told you no more hacking, Ellie," her dad said, with a groan. "God, if I ever _do_ see Skye again I'm going to-"

"She'd have you pinned down to the ground in two seconds tops," Coulson supplies. "I'm pretty sure that happened once anyway, didn't it?"

Eleanor noticed her dad mutter something, probably with a lot of swearing, and she turned her full attention back to her Uncle Phil.

"I was just fascinated that was all," she admitted. "The possibilities are endless, the theories do exist. I just don't understand how she managed to get it all off the ground and so quickly."

"Unless…" Her mum began, giving a wavering look to Coulson. "Sir, were those plans really ever _put away?"_

He looked unwilling to share but did so anyway. "It was thought that any other organisation could have the same technology, the same plans. We had to be prepared in case-"

"In case a top hacker and SHIELD Agent decided to go back and change the past," added her dad.

The line that Coulson's mouth pulled into told Eleanor that he didn't appreciate her father's attempt at humour.

"Why?" Eleanor finally asked. "Why _me_? There are other operatives, more experienced operatives, who could do this."

"Other operatives who Skye would know, who she might be able to detect," her mum replied quietly, and Coulson nodded. "And you can't send Fitz or I in case we run into our younger selves, which we would if..." She trailed off, probably thinking of a million tiny things that could go wrong if not accounted for.

"She knows me," Eleanor replied. "What if she-"

She didn't voice it out loud but felt as if everyone was thinking the same thing too.

It was Uncle Phil's turn to take her hand. "She never would."

Eleanor didn't ask whether he knew or whether he was hoping because she wasn't sure either.

* * *

She accepted the mission despite her father's further protests and her mother's slightly more subtle attempts at dissuading her from it. But it wasn't a sense of duty propelling her forward when she said, with a shaky voice, she would do it.

It was excitement, a fire inside she never knew existed. A flame had been lit by the idea of working with SHIELD, the idea of doing something. Terrified as she may have been by all that could go wrong, it was a chance to live. Twenty-five years of knowing nothing more than the same place and the same people and suddenly a chance to change that, a chance to do something _useful_.

And she was the only one who could do it. She was the one that Aunt Skye wouldn't expect; the one who could get through SHIELD tests and protocol with the knowledge that was sent back with her at the time.

Of course, there are a lot of things she hasn't accounted for.

One of them is the way she has to navigate the conversation from her parents and family and home, and the other is looking at the faces of people who are nothing more than ghosts to her in her own time and interacting with them as if she doesn't know they have an end date.

She just about manages the first but by the end of her first week on the BUS she's sure she's going to crack with the second.

* * *

Her bracelet jingles against the counter as she taps a rhythm out; waiting for the water to boil for her tea. She likes doing things the old fashioned way; with a method and reason and logic. She's quite like and quite different from her mother and father in that way and they constantly tease her for it.

For the daughter of two of the most forward-thinking minds, she sure does spend a lot of time looking back.

Eleanor turns to the sound of footsteps to see May standing at the counter beside her. The older woman says nothing and the silence is louder than any words could be. May doesn't trust her and what reason would she have to? There's no familiarity there; May died before she'd even started school.

Eleanor goes to retrieve her water, pouring it into her well-worn and chipped 'World's Best Daughter' mug – a quick gift from her parents from one of their international conferences when they had forgotten to get her anything else and one of the only things she was allowed to take with her – and removing the bag into the bin afterwards.

For a moment she thinks she's going to be scot-free, able to go back to her bunk and her tracking – before May stops her.

She inspects the bracelet carefully. "Where did you get that?"

"Family heirloom," Eleanor replies, that familiar dryness creeping up her throat. "I think it's from an Aunt who died or something. She left it to me."

Without much hesitation, May steps forward and touches one of the charms as if she knows it from somewhere.

Which could be possible. Some of the charms came from May, some of the charms from her Mum and Dad, and some even from Skye. Uncle Phil also gave her one of them for a birthday years ago. She has so many now that she's found it hard to remember who gave her which.

The bracelet, however, did belong to May, once upon a time.

Eleanor wasn't lying when she said it was from an Aunt who died.

"I just thought I might have one similar that was all."

Eleanor thinks she sees the hint of a smile – or a side-smirk at the least – but the moment is gone as May turns around and continues what she's doing.

"We have a briefing. Ten minutes."

Eleanor nods at the instruction, more than she's been given from the older woman in her time on the BUS, backing away with her tea in hand, and a small smile on her face.

* * *

She's not sent out into the field for the op; to her immense relief. When May suggests it; with a look that says she's trying to prove something, Coulson quickly insists she stay back and help Skye with the systems for the building they have to infiltrate.

SHIELD have been on the tail of a threat; a wealthy benefactor of one of their rival organisations for quite some time and they're finally close enough to get him. Eleanor wouldn't want her inexperience to be the reason they fail.

She's already got enough doubts about her own mission; she doesn't need to interfere with theirs.

Coulson decides that he, May and Ward will lead the field offensive while the others will stay back to run the mechanics of the operation. He pulls her aside for a quick moment before he leaves.

"If you ever needed a reason for them to trust you; it's now."

She knows what he means.

* * *

"You're pretty good," Skye says as they look over the screens in the briefing room. Eleanor smiles as she keeps a lookout on the cameras they've disabled, trying to keep the other three on track.

With a small nod of her head, she gestures to the screen beside her. "You're not too bad yourself."

A sigh and a laugh follow from Skye. "What can I say? It's always just been there." She taps her temples with her fingers, and then turns back to her comm device when she hears movement.

Eleanor finds it funny that she remembers her Aunt Skye saying the exact same thing years ago when she was teaching her about systems and hacking and how not to get caught by the big guy.

"Okay, you'll want to go left. Eleanor, what do you read on the target?"

Eleanor turns to her own screen quickly. "Should be," she scrutinises it quickly, "third door on your left."

"Third door on the left, got it," Coulson repeats. "Good job."

There's silence, in which Eleanor nor Skye say anything, followed by shouts and a few gunshots. Eleanor notes that Skye flinches at every one.

When the shots stop, they look at each other.

"We have the target."

A shared smile of relief carries between them.

* * *

It's later that the relief fades.

At first she thinks that this is the first hurdle and the hardest one. Skye is smiling at her, and inviting her to watch a movie with the rest of them to unwind from the mission. Politely, she declines, but she feels the weight shift from her shoulders, feels them slowly accept her, this outsider to things she knows about but she can't really understand.

On her way back to her bunk, she notices that Coulson wasn't with the others in the lounge. Even May was there; the plane on auto-pilot for a couple of hours while she relaxed. Deciding to head to her bunk instead of investigating it, she passes the interrogation room. The door is cracked open a little, but at first she doesn't stop.

Until she hears it.

"Is this about that rogue SHIELD agent? Because I can get her sued for what she did to me. Coming at me like she did with no evidence."

It couldn't be. What possible reason would she have?

"What rogue SHIELD agent? And on the contrary, we have plenty of evidence. Stacks of it just piled up, waiting for you to make it useful."

"I didn't catch her name; older, think she went by 'S' or something. How am I meant to know?"

Eleanor waits until she gets back to her bunk to lean against the door.

_What have you got yourself into,_ is all she can think of her missing Aunt, _and where are you_?


End file.
